CHAPTER XVIII
TRANQUILLITY
The afternoon was very hot when Nasmyth plodded down a steep hillside through the thick red dust of the waggon trail. A fire had swept the undergrowth away, and there was no shade among the trees which, stripped of their branches, towered about him, great charred and blackened columns. Close ahead the primeval Bush rose in an unbroken sombre mass, and Nasmyth, who quickened his pace a trifle, sat down with a gasp of satisfaction when he reached the first of the shadow. It was fresh and cool there. The Bush was scented with the odours of pine and cedar, and filled with the soft murmur of falling water, while he knew that just beyond it Bonavista stood above the sparkling sea.
He was on his way from the railroad depôt. It was just a fortnight since he had left the Tillicum at the little mining town, on the day after the one he and Violet Hamilton had spent on the beach, and he had not seen her before he went. Now he fancied that a welcome awaited him, and he felt sincerely pleased to be back again. As he sat beneath a great cedar filling his pipe, it seemed to him only appropriate that he should approach Bonavista through that belt of cool, sweet-scented Bush. It made it easier to feel that he had left behind him all that associated him with the strife and bustle of the hot and noisy cities. At Bonavista were leisure, comfort, and tranquillity, which were, after all, things that made a strong appeal to one side of his nature, and he had made no progress in the city. There was also no doubt that both Mr. and Mrs. Acton were glad to entertain him for a time. He sat still a few minutes, and then went on slowly beneath the towering redwoods and 187 cedars until he came out of the forest, and saw the sunlight stream down on the shingled roof of Bonavista close ahead.
The house appeared to be empty, and he had shed his dusty city clothes in his room and had dressed again before he came upon Mrs. Acton, sitting half asleep on a secluded strip of veranda. She roused herself and smiled when she saw him.
“So you have come back at last. We have been expecting you all the past week,” she said.
“That,” returned Nasmyth, “was remarkably good of you. In fact, I have wondered now and then, with some misgivings, whether you have not seen too much of me already.”
Mrs. Acton laughed. “You needn’t worry yourself on that point. We have all our little hobbies. My husband’s is the acquisition of dollars and the opening of mines and mills. Mine is the amusing of my friends, or, rather, the permitting them to amuse themselves, which is why I had Bonavista built. I make only one stipulation––it is that when you stay with us, you are amused.”